The present invention relates to an improved auto-clamper for pallets, and more particularly relates to improvement in automatic clamping of a pallet carrying a workpiece to a working table on, for example, a cutting machine.
Manual or automatic operation is conventionally employed in clamping a pallet carrying a workpiece to a working table of a machine, such as a cutting machine. Increased weight of a large workpiece, however, makes it quite infeasible to correctly clamp the pallet by manual operation. In addition, with the recently growing demand for full automation in a production line, it is generally required to remove manual operations from the production line as much as possible. For these reasons, automatic clamping is now broadly employed in the field of machining of workpieces. Automatic clamping is generally carried out utilizing pneumatic or hydraulic pressure, thereby increasing the running cost of an auto-clamper. In addition, one or more interfaces have to be interposed between the pressure source and the clamper and use of such interfaces tends to increase the installation cost of the working machine. Further, the mode of combination of such an interface with a clamper differs from machine to machine. In general, one type of interface cannot span machines of different types. Thus the conventional auto-clampers are quite unsuited for universal applications.